Starting my WOFT journey

Hey everyone, been browsing for a while but rather new still. I turned 30 in April and after being in a pretty unfulfilling place in life and wanting to do something meaningful I decided to push myself to become an Army Aviator. I was interested in joining the military when I was younger but was talked out of it.

So my journey started on May 1st. My brother is a recruiter and is helping me along in the process. I am currently 40 pounds overweight but have lost 20 since May 1st and will push to lose the rest over the next few months.

My goal is to put in a packet by the end of the year and I have started studying different sources of information as well. I have a SIFT study guide, the Army fundamentals of flight book, and miscellaneous practice tests.

Are there any other books or sources I should study? Is there any advice that anyone has for me? As far as civilian LORs is there anything I should shoot for in particular? I am trying to get in contact with an active duty army pilot now to see if I can get a CW3-5 LOR.

Reading the material can get pretty dry, so to get it to click, I would watch YouTube videos on aerodynamics of flight.

Study up on your high school level math, because that's mainly what the asvab and sift covers. I know it had been forever since seeing that for me.

Start networking for those LoRs. If you don't know aviators, look up bases you may be close to. A resource that really helped me was an air ems base. Almost all ems helo pilots are former military or current guard.

The FAA rotary wing handbook is quite dry but provides a lot of great information. And Youtube channel called Smarter Everyday also did a series on helicopters that helps visualize some of the concepts if you are struggling to understand them like I did.

Hurry up and wait is the name of the game. My main piece of advice is be patient. It took me about a year to finish my packet varying parts of my packet just didnt line up with deadlines like it could have and got stuck waiting 6 months to ship out to basic. I am still excited and grateful to be selected. Just have to work on patience when I get frustrated

Are you located near any Army bases? I got lucky and managed to meet a CW3 at my job who got me in contact with a CW5. There are plenty of threads that give advice on cold calling CABs to set up interviews with aviators. But be willing to travel to them if you are not close.